Computer network can experience any number of operational problems stemming from bugs, misconfigurations, changing network conditions, and the like. Accordingly, there has been recent interest in developing network monitoring systems that are able to automatically detect problems and alert a network administrator when the system detects a problem. In turn, the administrator may attempt to resolve the problem for the affected device(s). In other words, modern network monitoring systems still typically require manual intervention by a network administrator to address problems detected in the network.
Complicating the automatic deployment of fixes to detected network problems is the fact that an actual fix to a network problem is often not available at the time the problem is detected. For example, a detected problem may be due to an underlying software bug that can only be fixed via a software patch from the manufacturer that addresses the bug. Until the patch is released, however, there may be one or more workarounds available at the time of detection. Typically, these workarounds do not solve the underlying problem but, instead, address the symptoms of the problem. For example, in the case of a bug present in a software module, one workaround may be to simply disable the software module until a hot fix becomes available. However, by doing so, this may cause another problem to exhibit itself in the network.